Science
I cover science and innovation and products and policies they create.

Firefighters assess the scene as a house burns in the Napa wine region of California on October 9, 2017. (Photo credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

At least ten people have died as a result of raging wildfires in California that have also burned more than 1,500 structures, caused evacuations of homes and hospitals and spread chaos and concern from Anaheim Hills to Santa Rosa and Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino Counties in wine country.

The bottom line, though, is that an awful wildfire season that has seen 8.5 million acres burn in western states is now being capped off by a series of late-season fires threatening or burning right through urban areas.

Of course, fires can be started in a number of ways and climate change is not in itself a fire starter, but just as warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico have contributed to a horrific hurricane season, warmer temperatures in the West have contributed to the aridity and availability of dry fuels to burn.

According to Don Falk, a professor of Natural Resources at the University of Arizona, the 21st century climate of the American west is "giving us the longer fire seasons that make these high severity fires bigger and more common."

At least one meteorologist has suggested that vegetation that grew thanks to record rains in 2016 and earlier this year in California is now dead and drying out and just waiting to burn up.

Interestingly, that's an effect we've seen recently in Greenland, of all places, where warming temperatures may be allowing for more woody shrubs to grow than usual. When drought conditions caused that vegetation to dry out, we suddenly saw the very rare sight of wildfires on the edge of the huge ice sheet.

Unfortunately, the inferno in California is far more serious and far from over. Governor Jerry Brown said Monday that the fires are "not under control by any means."

What's worse is that the same could be true for destructive fire seasons like this one throughout the 21st century.

To jack in to my brain and get more on the latest in science, tech and innovation, follow me on Twitter @ericcmack